MyPlace, MyMusic: An International Study of Musical Experiences in the Home among Seven-year-olds

Abstract

For children who enjoy relatively affluent living circumstances, the home is now an important place for many forms of musical activity. Over the last decade, children’s domestic music practices have expanded and changed due to recent developments in home-based technologies, the commodification of children’s popular culture, and shifting patterns of family life. So, in order to understand these expansions and changes, research into childhood music is moving out of educational environments and into the home and other spaces and, as it does so, it is finding that it needs to draw on a wider range of disciplinary approaches and theoretical frameworks. However, although research is starting to accumulate, we still know little about the range and nature of contemporary home musical practices for children, particularly younger children.